Abstract
William Boehm is the founder of the youth choir The Singing Angels. He was born in Cleveland in 1920 and attended Western Reserve University. He has always been involved in theatre his whole life and in the fall of 1954 he began the Singing Angels. In this 2005 interview Boehm discusses the origins of the group, the goals of the group, and his experiences.
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Interviewee
Boehm, William (interviewee)
Interviewer
Willey, Chester (interviewer)
Project
History 311
Date
11-10-2005
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
48 minutes
Recommended Citation
"William Boehm Interview, 2005" (2005). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 311006.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/175
Transcript
William Boehm [00:00:02] Testing 1–2–3–4. I met Emily. She’s a beautiful lady, and it’s in this wonderful, gorgeous facility. Studio with oak paneling and portraits. Oh, my, I’m so impressed.
Chester Willey [00:00:19] Okay, we can go. Thursday afternoon, November 10, 2005, at approximately 4:00. My name is Chester Willey, and I am interviewing Mister William C. Boehm, founder of the youth chorus, The Singing Angels. Good afternoon, Bill.
William Boehm [00:00:48] Oh, thank you for calling me Bill, Chester.
Chester Willey [00:00:50] A couple of preliminary questions before we get into The Singing Angels themselves. Some personal information on you. Where and when were you born?
William Boehm [00:01:06] The year of 1920. Cleveland, Ohio.
Chester Willey [00:01:09] In Cleveland. And did you grow up here in Cleveland?
William Boehm [00:01:12] Yes.
Chester Willey [00:01:14] Where did you go to college?
William Boehm [00:01:16] I went to Western Reserve University, now called Case. I call it Western Reserve.
Chester Willey [00:01:25] What degrees did you earn at Western Reserve?
William Boehm [00:01:28] I have an AB degree and also a master’s degree. Master’s is in dramatic art.
Chester Willey [00:01:34] Good. When did you marry and do you have any children?
William Boehm [00:01:40] Yes, I have one boy. Harriet and I married in ’53. And my boy Bill… [sings] My boy Bill.
Chester Willey [00:01:50] Carousel, right?
William Boehm [00:01:51] Oh, that’s right.
Chester Willey [00:01:54] That’s 1953 that you were married since?
William Boehm [00:01:57] Yes, that’s correct.
Chester Willey [00:02:00] I wouldn’t want him to think it was 1853.
William Boehm [00:02:02] Right.
Chester Willey [00:02:03] What did you do professionally in business or what was your profession?
William Boehm [00:02:11] Well, I’ve always been in the theater as a singer, as an actor, director, producer at four years. Wonderful. Imagine you can. For me, they were very, very special in the service, military service. I was a captain in infantry. One of those guys, spent two and a half years in the ETO.
Chester Willey [00:02:38] Now European, European theater of operations. What years were you in the military?
William Boehm [00:02:45] 1942 to 1946.
Chester Willey [00:02:49] Just in time for World War Two.
William Boehm [00:02:51] I was in. I was, yeah, that’s right. Ah, yes.
Chester Willey [00:02:55] And what business? You were always involved in theater. Was that your maiden profession or did you have any other businesses that you were involved in?
William Boehm [00:03:07] No, I had a few other things. You might see startups doing this, that and the other thing, as any other young man might do. But in the theater, that’s been my. That’s been my call in life and it’s been just wonderful, just wonderful.
Chester Willey [00:03:22] What did you teach? Theater or were you working with professional theaters?
William Boehm [00:03:30] I have a certificate to teach, but I never taught a note, never taught anything except in the theater. At Music Carnival, for instance, I ran the theater school, but I was always performing. I directed, I directed Broadway stars at Musicarnival. And what else did I do? Did everything. Everything in the theater. It was just wonderful, wonderful experience.
Chester Willey [00:04:02] Did you work at some of the theaters at Playhouse Square or at the old Front Row Theater, or were these local theaters?
William Boehm [00:04:12] Well, we performed, the Singing Angels did perform in all of the major theaters, including all of those that you mentioned. And the first theater, it wasn’t a theater. It was our big music hall where the Cleveland Orchestra plays.
Chester Willey [00:04:31] Severance?
William Boehm [00:04:32] Severance Hall. We performed for about 1200 people. That was our very first concert which the sponsor, the Cleveland Friends of Music, incidentally, they were a wonderful, wonderful group. And they paid the rent, they printed the programs, printed the tickets and they give us all that money. And that’s what launched The Singing Angels.
Chester Willey [00:04:57] When did you get started with The Singing Angels?
William Boehm [00:05:01] Well, it would be in the fall of ’54. In the fall. And I didn’t have any money. Didn’t have a penny. Well, I had some money. Of course, I was doing a lot of singing in town. Club dates and things like that. And we started off, I put an announcement in the paper and 80 children came out for the very first time. 80 kids. And before the year was up I had 150. And then before the second year was up by 250. And then we retained it at that level because the Masonic Temple walls were bulging out already. Now they’re up to 350. They’re bulging even more. And we pack them in and we have a dynamic program that goes on there quite a few hours on weekends particularly, it’s open. May I make a few comments on that? Yeah. The purpose of The Singing Angels was to involve children with good music. That’s important. Frankly, I was not at all impressed with the beat music. I fight against it, frankly. And we got going on it. Immediately the parents gave a tremendous support and I got support, financial support from various people as we went along. And that’s what enabled us, energized us so we could carry on.
Chester Willey [00:06:51] Where did you first from the time you founded them? Were they always rehearsing and performing within the Masonic facility at 3615?
William Boehm [00:07:03] No, we did do a few concerts at Masonic, but that was our training ground. We occupied two floors, sometimes three floors. And thank heavens for that facility. It was just wonderful. Otherwise it would not have been possible to continue because I wanted a big group. But not so big that you could not possibly, probably and properly educate the children. We started them off at the age of five, five to fourteen. And that went on for several years until the staff protested. They said, mister Bean, these children are. They’re falling asleep. What are we going to do about that? Those little babies in the front row particularly. They’d sit there and their feet would dangle. They wouldn’t reach the floor. Five year olds and six year olds. But they were keen. And they wanted to learn. They wanted to perform. They loved it. And so there we went ahead and did it. And it grew and grew and grew. And we have something. We have something precious today.
Chester Willey [00:08:23] Now, did you divide them up into, did you have all of these, like, say you had 150 kids in the first couple of years, did you have them all in the same performing group, or were they divided up into different groups? Or did you have them all in one room together?
William Boehm [00:08:40] Well, first of all, we had three sections, first soprano, second soprano, Alto, because the children were so young. But then as we went along, our repertoire was curtailed by that size. So we started using the. We started cultivating the lower register of the altos. And then as we started to introduce boys into the chorus and as they matured, their voices would deepen. So finally we had a bass section, and then we could really go to town and do so many things, including barbershop harmony. It’s one of our special features.
Chester Willey [00:09:23] What that is another, My next question was, what types of music? When you said you wanted to introduce these children to good music, what types of music, what composers, what styles of music did you have them do?
William Boehm [00:09:39] Right. It had a wide range. We touched on the classics a little. We still do quite a bit of classics with the high notes and all that we do. It doesn’t hurt. Doesn’t hurt. The kids handled it. And we do good popular songs. I love Broadway show tunes. I love it because it introduces the element of dramatics. And in the musical theater, you’ve got to not only sing well, but act well. We also do an era that I love. That’s the operetta era. I love it. They’re wonderful shows. My favorite show is the Vagabond King. And I played Francois Villon and I fighting, sword fighting all the time. And I studied fencing at western reserve. And then I used that, employed that skill, limited skill, in the Vagabond King here in Cleveland. And also I got to use it in New York on NBC when we did Macbeth, I sang Macduff in that. I had to. There was a fencing episode in it, which they let me handle. So it stood in good stage. Incidentally, it’s a wonderful sport for women. For women. This girl over there who’s monitoring our program, she should get into fencing. I think it’s great.
Chester Willey [00:11:16] It is good exercise.
William Boehm [00:11:17] Yes, sir.
Chester Willey [00:11:19] My one experience with that was not real good because I’m a complete klutz.
William Boehm [00:11:24] Oh, no, no.
Chester Willey [00:11:27] What? You indicated that you kept them at the building because was the Masonic fraternity giving you financial support to keep them there, or did they make it available to you so that you could afford it?
William Boehm [00:11:42] Yes, that was a great help they gave us. They did not give us financial support because they don’t have the money. They need money. So if you’re a Mason, you get out there and help them make some donations. Your support and masonry there. It’s a wonderful, wonderful organization. But what they did do is they made it available and I needed space and we had four floors and I used them all. Used them all. And we also used the theater for an occasional concert. So it was a blessing.
Chester Willey [00:12:13] Now, you mentioned that they had performed literally all over the world.
William Bohem [00:12:20] Yep
Chester Willey[00:12:21] What were some of the highlight concerts that you did and some of the places they traveled to?
William Boehm [00:12:25] Oh, my goodness. It’s like someone asking you to sing a song and you say, what am I going to sing? I don’t know, but– Well, I’ll start going east. England. We went to the four big places in England. We sang in Wales. We did a concert there which was kind of a music, a vocal convention, eisteddfod. I know that you know about them.
Chester Willey [00:12:55] Yes.
William Boehm [00:12:56] And Queen Mary. Mary. Queen. Queen Mary. And she was in the audience. They had 6,000 people in the biggest tent I’ve ever seen in my life. And there were thirty-two countries participating. Thirty-two countries. We came in fourth in the competition. So it was quite a, quite an achievement with those kids.
Chester Willey [00:13:21] That celebration that you mentioned, the convention, eisteddfod, I believe, that’s a Welsh convention of singers, essentially, and they do that type of competition.
William Boehm [00:13:34] Yeah. I think they’re the greatest singing nationality in the world. The Russians are great, the Italians are great as a nation, you know, but those Welsh. And they won, incidentally, that year at the eisteddfod. They won first place, as they usually do. And we got to the others in England. We sang for the princess, one of the princesses, and it was just terrific. Then we went to France. We sang in France. They have a world’s fair. Yeah, world’s fair. What do they have out in South America and the US?
Chester Willey [00:14:24] Carnival?
William Bohem [00:14:27] The, you know, the big. Oh, gad! When you’re 85, you do forget a little. But I want you to know life begins at 85. And I might even get you into The Singing Angels involved in that.
Chester Willey [00:14:45] One of these days. [laughter]
William Bohem [00:14:46] I think you might be a very valuable addition, Kat. Why didn’t I– You can’t think of them, but– And then we went to Mexico. We were in Poland, Yugoslavia, we were in, and we went to Russia. We had a wonderful time in Russia. What an experience we had there.
Chester Willey [00:15:10] Do you remember what year it was that you went to Russia?
William Boehm [00:15:12] It was mid eighties, in the mid eighties. And of course, that covers a number of years. But I tried to have a tour every year, and these tours would include anywhere from one to four countries. We really got around. They would go from one to two weeks enduring. The kids loved it. They loved it. They loved to travel in Russia. I have one memorable experience. When we– Moscow and we sang at a youth camp, there were a thousand youngsters there. Young people. Not youngsters, young people. And we finished our program, as we usually do with the song Let There Be Peace on Earth. Wherever we go, we sing that song. We’re ambassadors of peace. We take that very seriously. So this is our finale. We’re singing it, and everything is very calm, whatnot. And all of a sudden there’s a restlessness that comes upon the group. What’s wrong? What’s happening? Suddenly I turned around and there was the kids in the audience. They had clenching hands above their heads and swaying, [singing] let there be peace on earth, you know. Oh, my. That was– That was so wonderful.
Chester Willey [00:16:29] It makes it worthwhile.
William Boehm [00:16:31] Yeah. Going down to Mexico and we went over to the Orient. We loved the Orient. Oh, my. And Thailand. My goodness. In Thailand, this is a remarkable country because they’re Chinese, but they want to be independent. They don’t want to be gobbled up by China. And China is trying to. They shoot rockets. They bracket the country with rockets, trying to threaten them to come into the fold. And they massed an army on the Chinese east coast, but they would not leave. They clung to their democratic stance. And the president, incidentally, is a graduate of Cornell University. And the reason why they didn’t conquer Taiwan, which they could have done so easily, probably one day they could take it over with their massive military force, was because of America. America stood fast. China needed the vast American market for their goods, and their own market in Asia was poor, lacking. But America was rich, so they had to give in and hope that they stay that way.
Chester Willey [00:17:54] This must have been a wonderful educational experience for these kids. About how long did the tours usually last?
William Boehm [00:18:01] They would last from two or three days to a week. I’m sorry. They would last at least a week, one to two weeks. And in each country that we visited, if there were more than one countries on the tour, they would last two or three days. So we got around.
Chester Willey [00:18:21] Now, did the children or their parents have to pay their way, or was the cost to the children, was it subsidized or how was that handled?
William Boehm [00:18:32] No, everyone had to pay their own way. That’s the way it was. You want to go, you gotta– But then they would go to their relatives, their grandpa and their family, relatives and friends and whatnot. And they, and they would also take jobs during the summertime, and they might work and save money for a couple of years before they could go. And that’s how they worked it out. No, they, and these are not, we’re middle class families, basically. So it’s a challenge. It’s quite a challenge.
Chester Willey [00:19:02] So that was a learning experience for them, too, of planning ahead.
William Boehm [00:19:06] Magnificent. The parents keep talking about how wonderful it was. Yeah.
Chester Willey [00:19:13] And what types of rehearsal in terms of the rehearsals and in terms of the discipline. Were you pretty strict with them?
William Boehm [00:19:24] Yes, we are strict, but with love. We are a family. We are a family. And, you know, you got to be there at a time. We start rehearsals promptly. You got to listen if you’re. I’ve got two or three of the staff hovering over them, you know, watching them keep quiet. But we’re not mean, we’re not harsh. A lot of like a family should be like it should be, like it should be. But how else they’re going to learn? How else are they going to sing like an adult? Like an adult choir, boy? Now, you’ve conducted choirs, haven’t you? Well, you would love these kids because, bingo. You go over something and they respond. Tom Neal, who is the masterful barbershop harmony expert, have you ever heard of Tom? Big Tom?
Chester Willey [00:20:12] Yes.
William Boehm [00:20:13] He was so wonderful to us, to The Angels. And I never. I worked with him on his show and, an evening show, and he was on the bill. So afterwards we all went out afterglow, and Tom is in his cups. That’s when I approached him. I said, hey, Tommy, how about teaching these kids barbershop harmony? Well, I didn’t mention to you, that’s kind of the music that we specialize in. Please jump in here, because I never stopped talking about these kids. They can’t help it. And so I said, Tom, how about teaching him? He said, why, sure, I’ll teach a little tykes. Except he didn’t say tykes. And he said, yeah. I said, I’ll call you tomorrow. This is Friday night. Friday or Saturday morning early. I’ll call you at 10:00 rehearsal is at 11:00. So I called him at 11:00 and he was still sleeping. And he said, oh, my God. He says, Bill, you don’t have. I can’t. I said, you promised me. You promised me. You better be there. So he said alright, he came. He staggered in, he worked with the kids for 15 minutes. And he was hooked. Whatever he spun out at them, they responded to. He fell in love. He’s still with us. After forty years, he’s still with us. He loves him. Yeah. I better stop, you. I want to hear about you sometime, too.
Chester Willey [00:21:42] Not really. You’re doing fine. Now, about how much time each week did you put into the angels? On an average, ten to twenty hours to forty hours a week or how much time did you spend?
William Boehm [00:21:58] More like sixty.
Chester Willey [00:21:59] More like sixty?
William Boehm [00:22:00] Yeah.
Chester Willey [00:22:01] Did you get a salary for this?
William Boehm [00:22:03] The first four years I worked without salary, there wasn’t any money. So how do you do it? You work without salary? I was doing these other jobs, singing, having a, you know, I had a good reputation singing at club dates and things like that and singing at the Alpine Village. Herman Pirchner, who was the most magnificent cabaret owner probably in America. Just a wonderful man, Herman Pirchner. So I forgot where I was. [laughs]
Chester Willey [00:22:35] Talking about after the first four years you were working without salary.
William Boehm [00:22:39] Right. Then I started going along, adding, taking a small salary and the board of trustees would enlarge it. But we came into periods of stress, of financial stress. And so then you cut back down. Cut down. And then when you’re doing well, doing well means getting grants because you’re not going to get rich by doing concerts in Cleveland. You know, they budgeted. They just don’t have the budget. Although we got it up to pretty good fee on industry. I say thank goodness for the corporations because they subsidize the culture of our town. Without them, you have no culture. You’re down in the dumps. So we struggled. That’s the way I worked it. And when we. If you didn’t have it, don’t spend it. You work it out somehow. And so we never went into debt. Never ever in forty years.
Chester Willey [00:23:42] Wow.
William Bohem [00:23:43] Yep. And you know how the arts are struggling. But we made it. We made it. The public will respond, but you got to work so hard and we got to build out the Masonic Singers group for you because you’re the conductor. That’s it. Did you know that he’s a conductor of a The Masonic Chorus? Yes, sir.
Chester Willey [00:24:04] What would you say was the influence in your life that prompted you to do this? What made you think about doing this and made you want to put in that kind of effort? Especially in the early years when you were not only not making any money, you were spending a lot of money on it.
William Boehm [00:24:24] That’s a very–
Chester Willey [00:24:25] What was the influence that made you want to do this?
William Boehm [00:24:28] The reason why I’m in the arts into music. It must be what the good Lord puts in our soul. He gives you a voice. For instance, I had a tenor, tenor voice, and I got into the theater when I was in junior high and then high school and then college. So it was a God given thing. And my dad wanted me to be an attorney, but fortunately, I did not go into that field. I have many friends in the legal profession, so I stayed in it and I worked it out. I managed a living, and I’ve never been disheartened or let down about it.
Chester Willey [00:25:20] Knowing what you do now, after forty years of all this effort, if you had to do it all over again, would you still make the effort?
William Boehm [00:25:29] Absolutely.
Chester Willey [00:25:32] Yeah. It was that much. It was that much worth it?
William Boehm [00:25:37] Oh, my goodness. And to be able to sing, and particularly when you hit those high notes, it took a lot of training, voice culture, etcetera. But basically, it’s the gift that you have from the good Lord. Absolutely.
Chester Willey [00:25:55] What might you do differently, looking back on your years with The Singing Angels? You had so many successes. What were some of the things that you might have thought of that you might have wanted to try differently?
William Boehm [00:26:12] There’s one thing that I would definitely do differently. If you have a, let’s say, a calling, and you work at something all your life like I have, and develop it and create something good, you’ve got to protect it. You’ve got to protect it because there are envious people out there, and they will try to take it away from you. You’ve got to protect yourself, particularly when you get to your board of trustees, arm yourself with your best friends. And also, if you’re going to do a board for a cultural project, get people of financial substance. You’ve got to have them because they will give you the feed money. You can’t get it from just the performers themselves because they don’t have any money. I never forget a story I heard once about a gentleman who’s president of the Cleveland Symphony. Cleveland Symphony organization. Yeah, Cleveland Orchestra. This goes back a few years, and, no, I’m in error. Please forgive me. It was the Summer Pops concerts. Summer Pops concerts. And they all– They– Oh, boy. It was the Metropolitan Opera. Metropolitan Opera. That’s what it was. We brought it in for about a week or ten days. Finally it registered, and that took a lot of money. And my close and dear friend Johnny Price spent some time in the organization doing administration work, but they had a very difficult time. But without that wealth, that would not have been possible. And I can’t understand why people don’t understand why people do not understand that. If you’re going to have a company, if you’re going to have a wonderful culture entity, you’ve got to have someone who is willing to put capital into it, and because it’s absolutely necessary. And I heard a story that was told to me by a prominent person in the arts. They said they had a chairman of the board, chairman of the board at that time, and he had a board meeting. They said, well, we’ve got to raise $500,000. So he said it was a luncheon meeting. And he said, okay, now, Jim, you’re good for $100,000. And, Ed, at least $75,000. And, Sam, another $50,000, etcetera, went around the room, he said, okay, that’s it. Let’s go to lunch. And they had it all done. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? You’re a man of the arts and, oh, my, my, oh, my.
Chester Willey [00:29:30] What a good time that would be. [laughter] What do you feel that you gained from this experience of forty years worth with The Singing Angels?
William Boehm [00:29:41] Oh, I feel like my life is worthwhile. My life is worthwhile. I’ve done something. I haven’t made a lot of money. Matter of fact, my poor wife, who’s. I’m worried about my wife, my family. She’s bedridden. And you know how tough it is to make an income in the arts. So I have to. That’s why I’m going back to work. I was retired, but I’m not going to stay retired. And we’re going to start a campaign here. That life begins at 85. You got a long way to go. Don’t you worry about that.
Chester Willey [00:30:22] Not that long, actually.
William Boehm [00:30:24] Well, we got to keep in touch. We might. We got to get together here.
Chester Willey [00:30:28] What would you most want people, someone listening to this recording fifty years from now, let’s say, what would you most want them to know about The Singing Angels and about what they’ve done?
William Boehm [00:30:45] Well, I would hope that fifty years from now, The Angels are going full blast. And then if you want to know something about them, we’ll read the history books, read some of the excerpts of interviews and whatnot. But we want to continue on and on. It’s too valuable. And you’ve got to stay with music, with the kids. We’ve got to, you know, look what’s happening in the world. There’s chaos, chaos all around us. The war and the hurricanes and the tsunamis and this and that, and holy cow, we had a storm out in, was it Lakewood, the other day? But I don’t want to be an alarmist. But we got to look after the arts.
Chester Willey [00:31:39] And one of the other questions they’ll want to ask is what would you most want them to know or to remember about Bill Boehm, who gave of himself for these forty years?
William Boehm [00:31:54] Well, I want them to think well of my family. I hope to give something of pride to my family for this work. Certainly haven’t been able to give any substantial financial aid. You know, lots of luxuries and things, just not the calling. But when these children come up to you and they give you a hug, oh, man, they always are so glad to see me. And I am thrilled to see them. That’s the payoff for me.
Chester Willey [00:32:33] Like Adam just did a minute ago in this building. The young man that came up.
William Boehm [00:32:39] Oh, yes, we met one of my Singing Angels. He was a wonderful family. He’s been gone for about three or four years. But just like that, we remember. Yes, sir, that’s right. You’ve got a good memory.
Chester Willey [00:32:58] You had a number of The Angels over the years that went on to some pretty significant careers. Do you remember some of the people that were graduates of The Angels that made it professionally in the arts?
William Boehm [00:33:13] Yes, I don’t always remember their names, but one, Roy Kaiser Jr. That’s when I will always remember. A wonderful family of boys in the earlier days, and all the boys had average voices at best. Then the dad moved out to the west coast and their mom put them in ballet. And today Roy Kaiser Jr. is the artistic director. Number one man, number one man of the Pennsylvania Ballet, one of the finest in the world. That’s one of my babies. And then we got another boy who wrote the score, which won a, Broadway. What do they call that, the Oscar?
Chester Willey [00:33:59] Tony Award.
William Boehm [00:34:00] Tony Award, right. He won a Tony Award for writing Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk. Won a Tony Award. I have a lad who is the associate conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony. See, they not only get their musical experience and my kids, on the average is. That’s the word. They’re average singers. They’re average. Average. You know, they won’t get to Hollywood as a vocalist, but they, we give them a fundamental training of discipline. And matter of fact, Roy Kaiser said the reason why he and his brothers are successful in ballet is because of what they got from The Singing Angels. And it’s the greatest. There is a thrill that when you get something like that that really makes you proud.
Chester Willey [00:34:58] You mentioned a couple of the tour stories from England and the one from Russia. Were there some other favorite stories about things that happened on tours or in concerts that really pointed up.
William Boehm [00:35:11] Yeah, I’d like to repeat that one about in Russia, because that was so thrilling in Moscow. And we sang at a youth camp and there were about 1000 of them. And we sang, as we always do, Let There Be Peace on Earth. Did I go over that already? [Recording abruptly ends at 00:35:34]
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